Fast and slick Linux for PowerPC and ARM64
Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 Beta has been released and I am up to date with the changes. When a stable version is released, the arm64 version will follow suit soon thereafter. I will not give away this release for free anymore.
Upgrade from LMDE 6 goes smooth and without any issues. I just performed an upgrade from LMDE 6 to 7 within UTM. The result can be seen here.
I was able to build the latest VLC for PowerPC, after many years being unable to be built. It was shown to work on the new Mirari board, a PowerPC based computer with the e5500 chip. The Mirari does not have Altivec instructions. The VLC packages were built with Altivec disabled. VLC PowerPC is only available in MintPPC32, not in Debian.
Today BrassMonkey, an internet suite application, was added to the MintPPC repository. To install:sudo apt update
sudo apt install brassmonkey
Info at github
Hello, I am very proud to announce that LMDE 6 cinnamon edition for arm64 has been released. Much testing has been done and I now call the live installer stable. lmde6-cinnamon-arm64.iso installs LMDE 6 with packages from the Linux Mint Xia release in a Debian Trixie base. This distribution will have a shelf life until June 2035, as Debian keeps fixing security bugs until that time (see here).
Send a mail to jjhdiederen at zonnet dot nl for more information.
Details of LMDE 6 cinnamon arm64:
kernel: 6.12.41+deb13-arm64
cinnamon: 6.4.8+faye
System requirements:
2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
20 GB of disk space (100 GB recommended).
1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).
Screenshot LMDE 6 cinnamon arm64 from a Mac mini M1:
I have started with the preparations of the next Linux Mint Debian Edition arm 64. It is called Gigi and has version number 7. I was able to build a live system with LXDE in this case as it builds fast and the right base-files package. As you can see, it is real Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) now, as recognized by fastfetch.
Edit 20 September 2025
Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 Beta has been released and I am up to date with the changes. When a stable version is released, the arm64 version will follow suit soon thereafter.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp-data=2.10.38-2
sudo apt install gimp
sudo apt-mark hold gimp-data
It is now possible to install Gnumeric, a spreadsheat program, in MintPPC64. It wasn’t possible for many many years. The fix was easy. I uploaded the fix to the goffice Gnome team and to goffice Debian.
This year saw the release of various new components of the LXDE desktop, as used in MintPPC.
See here for an update of all new components.
ArcticFox has been updated to 46.1 in MintPPC32. There are no ppc64 builds for SeaLion and ArcticFox lately.